


The Wave That Runs Forever

by Persiflage



Series: Bondkink Fics [5]
Category: Casino Royale (2006), James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), Quantum of Solace (2008), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Female Character In Command, Female Character of Color, Jealousy, Mission Fic, Older Woman/Younger Man, Prompt Fic, Rival Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-25
Updated: 2012-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-22 09:25:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/608296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persiflage/pseuds/Persiflage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James Bond has signed up for the idyllic life with Vesper Lynd - but the past, and particularly M, isn't keen to let him go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the bondkink comm on LJ. The prompt was _Craig!Bond/Vesper, Craig!Bond/Dench!M; Rivalry, jealousy, UST. Casino Royale!AU. M occasionally invades James and Vesper's idyllic life to try to lure Bond on sporadic missions, clashing with Vesper in the process. Bond doesn't make things any easier by accepting (and being so very pleased to see M on those visits)._  
>  The fic opens a few weeks after Bond's resignation from MI6. The title is taken from Tennyson's 'Idylls of the King'.  
> Spoilers: AU to Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace and Skyfall but with elements from all 3 movies.  
> Disclaimer: If hits equalled ££ I'd be rich, as it is, I make no profit!

"Who's that, James?" asks Vesper Lynd as she spots a figure seated on the deck of their yacht.

"Hmm?" James Bond is preoccupied with lifting the bags of supplies from their taxi and doesn't look up to see who's attracted his lover's attention.

"There's a woman sitting aboard our boat," Vesper tells him. She looks around at him and sees his eyes light up as he catches sight of their unexpected visitor. Instantly Vesper feels jealous: although James always looks very pleased to see her when they've spent any time apart, he's never looked this delighted. It must be an old lover, she thinks, and she immediately wonders how the woman knew where to find James. She looks at him sidelong, trying to gauge how genuine his surprise is, wondering if he'd previously contacted this woman to tell her that he'd be here.

As soon as they're within hailing distance, the woman calls out a greeting and Vesper can now see the woman's considerably older than she'd first thought – at least twenty years senior to James, possibly more, and Vesper feels confused. Whoever she is, she can't be a former lover, surely, and she's definitely not James' mother because Vesper knows he's an orphan.

"M, what on Earth are you doing here?" asks James, sounding far too pleased to see the woman Vesper now realises is his former boss.

She watches in annoyance as he hurries up the gangplank, dumps the bags willy-nilly on the deck, then moves across to the chair where M has remained seated. She looks, Vesper thinks in irritation, like the Queen Mother, an image that's heightened when James bends over her and takes both her hands in his as he bestows a kiss on her cheek. Vesper turns away, feeling a surge of anger, and hurries below deck to start putting away their supplies.

007-007-007

"I don't think your Miss Lynd is particularly pleased to see me, Bond," M observes, having noted the younger woman's flushed cheeks and glittering eyes before she disappeared.

"Oh, I expect she's just anxious to put things away," Bond says, apparently oblivious to his lover's state of mind. "Whatever are you doing here, M? I won't ask how you knew I'd be here." He lifts an eyebrow and she gives him a half-smile. "Not on holiday, are you?"

"Alas no," M says with a sigh. She pauses as Vesper returns to collect some of the bags Bond had left on the deck, then asks, "Can we go for a walk?"

He frowns slightly, but agrees readily, and M concludes he hasn't yet guessed the reason for her unannounced visit. He leans through the hatch and calls out, "Vesper? M and I are going for a walk along the front. We won't be too long."

There's a bang from somewhere below their feet and M restrains a slight wince; it sounds remarkably like Miss Lynd has just slammed shut a cupboard door.

"Don't forget you promised to cook dinner," Vesper shouts back, and M can hear anger tightening the younger woman's voice.

"I won't," Bond calls back, before turning to usher M down the gangplank.

They stroll off along the seafront, and M begins to speak in a low voice. "We've managed to track down your friend who shot Le Chiffre. Allegedly his name is Mr White." Bond snorts and she flashes a tight smile up at him, acknowledging that this is probably an alias. "We know where he's going to be in two days time, and we want you to go and pick him up for us so we can talk to him."

Bond frowns. "Why me? I resigned, remember?"

"You can easily be reinstated," M says. 

"But why not just send someone else? There are other Double-0 agents."

"Most are tied up on operations already," M tells him. "And while we are training up new agents, none of them are ready for an operation of this kind. To be perfectly frank, Bond – "

"You always are," he mutters, but she ignores the interruption.

"You picked a damned inconvenient moment to turn into a playboy and idle your life away." 

He looks down at her, and she can see a hint of contrition in his eyes, but there's no pleading in his tone when he speaks, "Don't I deserve some happiness in my life, M? After everything I've been through?"

"You may be happy now, but how long will that last?" She puts a hand on his arm and they stop walking. She looks up at him. "I know you, Bond. I've known you since you were an orphan boy, and you thrive on excitement, challenges, danger, and, God help us, mayhem. You're not the man to settle into a life of idleness, bumming around from one place to the next, making just enough from playing at the Casinos to keep you in food and fuel for the boat. Sooner or later, the itch to be up and doing something useful will come back." 

She gives him a shrewd look and sees the minute shift in his expression – probably one that no one else would have noticed it, but as she'd said, she's known Bond a long time, and his face is as familiar to her as her husband's. "It's already come, hasn't it?" she asks softly.

He gives a quick nod, not meeting her eyes. "I haven't said anything to Vesper," he admits.

M isn't surprised by this admission, nor is she surprised to find that Bond is finding the idyll is not quite as restful as he'd supposed it would be. "Then come and do this job for me," she says. "Bring in Mr White, so we can interrogate him. We'll pay you, of course."

"Very well."

M knows him well enough to be sure it isn't the offer of payment that's persuaded him, but she wisely doesn't comment on it. "Come back with me to my hotel, and Villiers and I will brief you properly."

He looks away from her, staring out across the harbour, and she waits patiently for him to make a choice.

"Stay and have dinner with us this evening, and I'll break the news to Vesper, then I'll come back to the hotel with you afterwards."

She gives a quick nod, too relieved by his agreement to cavil at a further delay of only a few hours. "All right."

He smiles then, before turning back towards the boat, and they stroll back at an unhurried pace discussing the weather. 

007-007-007 

Vesper is lying on the roof of the cabin, reading, when James returns. She hears him before she sees him, and feels a surge of irritation when she realises that he's brought that woman back with him. She can hear him telling M where the toilet facilities are, then he climbs up onto the roof beside her.

"Hello, love." He kneels down and after a moment she feels his lips kissing a path up her spine, and despite herself she shivers slightly at the touches.

"What did she want?" She turns her head away from James so he can't kiss her until he's answered her.

"Tell you later," he murmurs.

Vesper lifts her head, something in his tone making her wary. "Tell me now," she insists.

There's a flash of anger in his eyes, before he settles back on his heels and says, "M wants me to do a job for her."

Vesper glares at him. "You resigned."

"Yes, I did," he agrees, in far too reasonable a tone, she feels. "But I've promised to help out. It's only going to take a few days, a week at the most. Six have tracked down the man who shot Le Chiffre, and I've said I'll go and pick him up for them."

"Why you?" she asks.

"Because no one else is available. Don't worry," he says, leaning forward to kiss her shoulder. "I'll get paid."

She snorts. "As if that matters."

Bond laughs, then kisses the corner of her mouth. "It'll matter if we run out of food."

"Just promise me you'll be careful, all right?"

He lifts her chin and kisses her full on the mouth; Vesper moans, then shifts onto her back and looks up at him, feeling a heat that had nothing to do with the sun, burning through her veins.

"James." Her voice is low and full of longing.

He smirks at her. "Have you forgotten our visitor?" He gets to his feet, then strolls across the cabin roof out of sight, and Vesper clenches her fist and bangs it down. She had forgotten M in the heat of James' kisses: he was apt to make her forget everything when his mouth was on her body.

007-007-007

M has never had a meal cooked by Bond before, and she's mildly surprised to discover he's a far better cook than she'd anticipated. He produces a dish involving shrimp, anchovies and pasta that tastes as good as anything she's eaten in one of London's Italian restaurants, and she doesn't hesitate to tell him so.

"If you're looking for an alternate career, Bond, I suggest you open a restaurant," she says, smiling up at him as he collects their empty plates.

"Flatterer," he says, smiling back, and she can't help thinking how rarely she's seen him looking so happy. She feels a slight stab of guilt at intruding on his idyll, but she quashes it firmly. Six needs him; more importantly, she needs him: she doesn't trust anyone else to fetch White, even given Bond's proclivity for causing mayhem.

M can see that Bond's already told Vesper about his intention to temporarily rejoin Six; in fact, if looks could kill, M would be dead and buried by now. She doesn't respond to the venomous glares, however; she has nothing against Vesper per se, but she needs her best agent for this job, and Bond is still that, despite his resignation. She makes pleasant conversation about Italy over their ice cream dessert and the coffee that follows, and ignores the seething anger she can sense in the younger woman. 

She bids Vesper a courteous goodnight and thanks her for her hospitality, then makes her way down the gangplank to leave Bond to make his own farewells. He comes out a very short time afterwards, a holdall balanced over his shoulder.

"Ready?" he asks.

"Yes." She watches him from the corner of her eye as they head towards the hotel at a fairly brisk pace, and notes that he doesn't appear to be regretting this temporary parting: he's got the focused look she knows well from previous pre-mission briefings, and she knows that he's not going to back out on her, which is a relief.

They go straight up to M's hotel suite, and she rings Villiers to tell him to join them. The younger man looks faintly surprised when he sees Bond, and she wonders if he doubted her ability to bring her agent back on board. Well, he won't be in any hurry to doubt her again. 

007-007-007

Bond's only a few miles out of Siena, on his way back from picking up White from Lago di Garda, when he picks up a tail. He immediately speeds up, trying to lose the Alpha Romeo that's following him as they reach the tunnel ahead, but someone behind begins firing on him. His body tenses and he feels a flash of anger at these idiots who think they can outmanoeuvre a Double-0 agent. He puts his foot down, flooring the accelerator, and tries to overtake a lorry that's veered into the left hand wall of the tunnel and is now scraping along the stonework at speed. The driver, however, side-swipes his Aston Martin, and a large metal spike punches through his door. Bond immediately throws the steering wheel into a spin, wrenching off the driver's door and freeing up his car. Q-Branch, he thinks belatedly, are going to be less than happy, but he trusts M will smooth things over with them, provided he can get White back to her alive. He races forward, the Aston Martin still responding beautifully despite his rough treatment, and he notes the Romeo's still following him.

The two cars race out of the tunnel onto the open road and Bond hears the sirens of the Carabinieri nearby. _Just what I need_ , he thinks irritably. 

As he hurtles down the road two police vehicles come racing towards him and he immediately swerves out of their path, taking a less direct route through a quarry. He hears gunfire behind him and hopes the Carabinieri are firing on his pursuers rather than him. As he follows the switchback road downhill a police jeep comes crashing into his path from the road above, and he's forced to swerve at high-speed in order to avoid the jeep hitting his car.

His pursuers begin firing on him again and he's forced to duck aside as glass explodes beside his head, then the Alpha Romeo draws alongside and the driver begins trying to force him off the road. He snarls in anger and starts scrabbling around, trying to locate the machine gun he's brought with him, looking up just in time to spot a tractor trundling towards him. He's still dodging bullets from his pursuer, but he manages to grab his gun, then swerve around the tractor, before opening fire himself. He hits the driver and the car goes hurtling over the side of the road, then on down the cliff where it explodes.

The rest of Bond's journey passes without incident, although he's aware of getting odd looks from the other motorists he passes because his car's such a mess, but he cares little for that. He makes his way through the city to the pre-arranged rendezvous point, then climbs out of the car and moves to its rear. He opens the boot, in which White is lying bound, bleeding, and breathing heavily.

"It's time to get out," Bond tells him pleasantly.

He carries White inside, slung head first over his shoulder, then dumps him unceremoniously into a chair. "Don't bleed to death," he tells him, then walks away, beginning to unfasten the knot of his tie as two other men move in to secure the prisoner, and to give him some rather less rough-and-ready first aid than Bond had administered after shooting White in the leg to ensure he couldn't run away.

He rounds a corner to find M, dressed in a black trouser suit and a white blouse, waiting for him. She looks her usual cool, collected self, he notes as he greets her bodyguard, Mitchell.

"The Americans are going to be none too pleased about this," she notes as Bond pulls off his tie.

"I promised them Le Chiffre, and they got Le Chiffre," he reminds her tersely. 

"They got his body," M says, and he wonders why she's suddenly worrying about the CIA.

"If they'd wanted his soul, they should have done a deal with a priest," Bond says.

"Has he said anything?" she asks, watching as White is being given medical treatment.

Bond pours himself a Scotch, pleased that some has been supplied. He feels the need of a drink after the last few miles. "No."

"I'm going to check the perimeter, ma'am," Mitchell says, and disappears.

M turns around and takes in Bond's appearance for the first time: he has a number of cuts down the left side of his face which she assumes were caused by flying glass. "You look a mess."

He merely raises an eyebrow, although the second one joins the first when she comes closer to pass him the Scotch and a handkerchief.

"Clean that up," she instructs him. "You don't want an infection."

"Ma'am."

He only says that one word but, as he often does, he manages to invest it with quite a lot of meaning. He winces a little at the sting of the alcohol on his cuts.

Before she can say anything further, Mitchell returns. "Perimeter's clear, ma'am."

"Thanks Mitchell."

"Shall we?" asks Bond, and she nods, then follows him back to where White is seated. 

Bond grabs a chair and drags it over to White; its metal legs scrape horribly across the stone floor and M knows it's a deliberate tactic designed to unsettle the prisoner. White certainly flinches aside when Bond seats himself, and M notes the dried blood on the older man's leg, and the neat bandage that covers his bullet wound.

"Are you gonna tells us who you work for?" Bond begins, his tone pleasant and reasonable.

"I was always very interested to meet you," White responds. "I've heard so much about you from a number of my contacts. We almost had you, you know."

Bond just stares hard at him, saying nothing. 

"Well, you know you're not in Britain," M says, "and God knows where you'll be tomorrow, which should tell you that eventually you will tell us about the people you work with, and the longer it takes, the more painful we'll make it."

White starts to laugh and she sees Bond twitch in his chair, as if he's going to leap up and start manhandling the other man. She gives the agent a quick frown, and Bond leans back slightly, acknowledging her control of the situation.

"You really don't know anything about us," White laughs, shaking his head. "It's so amusing because we're on the other side, thinking 'The MI6, the CIA, they're looking over our shoulders. They're listening to our conversations.' And the truth is, you don't even know we exist." He chuckles, rocking back in his chair.

"Well, we do now, Mr White, and we're quick learners," M assures him.

"Oh really?" White asks, still chuckling. "Well, then, the first thing you should know about us is that we have people everywhere. Am I right?" he asks, looking up at Mitchell, who immediately draws his gun, shooting the agent beside him before firing at M. He hits the metal IV stand instead, and as M turns to flee Bond flips his chair out from underneath him and flings it at Mitchell before throwing himself on the man. 

The two men fight for control of Mitchell's gun, and Bond temporarily deprives him of it, but Mitchell kicks him in the stomach, sending Bond crashing to the floor, before he snatches up his gun again and flees. Bond glances up and sees M disappearing up a flight of stairs at the far end of the room, then turns to race after Mitchell. His instinct is to go after M to ensure that she gets to safety, but he throttles it, hoping that she will encounter someone who's not a traitor and who'll get her away. Bond knows that M was once a Double-0 herself, but it's been a long time since she was out in the field, and he's not sure if she still keeps up her training.

He charges after Mitchell, who's fleeing through the network of underground tunnels and chambers that make up the mediaeval bottini below Siena, until they come out in the Piazza del Campo, where the Palio di Siena has just taken place. Bond utters a silent groan at the sight of the huge crowd of spectators which is preventing him from getting a clear view of, or indeed a clean shot at, Mitchell. This doesn't appear to stop the other man, however, as Bond hears two gunshots ring out as he begins shoving his way through the mass of people. 

Mitchell soon takes to the rooftops, and Bond pursues him still; after a breathless chase that involves lots of flying leaps from building to building, and which leaves Bond feeling battered and bruised, they crash through a glass-domed building, where some usefully-placed scaffolding breaks Bond's fall, and Mitchell's too. The pair tussle and fight, crashing around and making so much noise that Bond briefly wonders why no one comes to investigate before he decides everyone's probably still in the Piazza following the horse race. 

As he swings about upside down from a rope that's tangled around his ankle, trying to make a grab for his gun, Bond abruptly realises that even if he manages to survive this encounter, he's not going to be able to just walk away and return to Vesper, not after someone has tried to have M killed. Whoever's responsible, whoever's employed White and Mitchell, has to be stopped, and Bond intends to be the man who stops them.

007-007-007

The first Vesper knows of James' change of plan is when he rings her to tell her that he's in London. At first she's too stunned to protest, and then she realises there's little point since he's presented her with a fait accompli. 

Their conversation is tense and brief: he cannot, or will not (and she's not naïve enough to confuse the two), tell her why he's in London, saying only that his collection job came badly unravelled, and that there are 'one or two' things he needs to sort out before he returns to Venice.

They exchange two further phone calls a few days apart, both equally as brief and lacking in explanations from James, before he finally returns. When he at length shows up, he's been gone for two weeks, and in his absence, Vesper's seriously considered simply sailing off without him, or alternatively sailing off with someone else. She remains, however, because she doesn't want anyone else, nor does she now want a life in which James Bond doesn't figure. It isn't just that he's great in bed (although the sex is fantastic), but that he seems to understand her on some fundamental level that no other man (or woman, for that matter) ever has.

So when James returns, looking sober but not too battered, mercifully, she allows him to 'spoil her rotten' as he puts it, and doesn't say any of the things she had previously considered saying. Nor does she issue any ultimatum, but she sincerely hopes that M will stay the hell away from her man in the future.

007-007-007

Vesper’s hope turns out to be a vain one: M turns up at irregular intervals over the next eighteen months and takes James away, sometimes for a week, but more often for longer, to do a job for her which, according to James, no one else can do. She’s always very courteous about her irruptions into their lives, but Vesper notices that her apologies for needing James’ help are perfunctory at best. 

Vesper seethes with frustration after each visit, but especially whenever James comes back from a mission injured. He brushes aside her concerns, however, telling him he’s ‘fine’ even when it’s obvious he’s not, and the trip that causes him nightmares is the worst since he won’t explain what’s behind the awful dreams. She isn't sure that the next time she sees M after that particular mission she'll be able to remain civil to the other woman, but she doesn’t dare to issue any ultimatums just in case James decides to return to M and MI6 permanently.

Three months after the trip that gives James nightmares, they're on Rhodes, where James has part-exchanged their Spirit 54 yacht for a much larger model since he's planning on taking Vesper to South Africa, and he wants more space for supplies. She is doing her best to look forward to the trip, but she has a strange feeling that she cannot shake that it’s not going to happen, even though they’ve been planning it for weeks. 

She leaves James at the harbour, doing a thorough overhaul of every piece of equipment on the new boat, while she goes to see an exhibition she'd seen advertised at a local museum. On the way back, she stops off for food supplies, and by the time she reaches the harbour her feet are aching from all the walking, and her shoulders ache from carrying the heavy bags, but she's looking forward to a late lunch with James. Then she rounds the corner and stops dead: ahead of her she can see James and M seated under a makeshift awning that James has rigged up using a piece of sail. There's a table off to James' left, on which she can see the remains of lunch, and as Vesper stares, he says something to M which makes the older woman throw back her head and laugh. Vesper feels as if someone's punched her in the stomach, especially when James leans in close to M and says something else that makes her swat playfully at his arm. The feeling of nausea increases as Vesper realises that it looks awfully like James and M are flirting. She's previously suspected that the pair's feelings for each run deeper than either one of them is prepared to admit, and now it appears as if her suspicions are well-founded. Vesper watches for a little while longer, aware of a strange hollow feeling inside her that has nothing to do with her lack of lunch, then she forces herself to move.

Bond doesn't look up and spot Vesper until M has already seen the younger woman come to a stop further up the quayside. She deliberately hadn’t said anything to Bond, however, because she was curious to see how Vesper would react to her reappearance. Even at a distance, it's obvious to M that the young woman is displeased, but M doesn't let that worry her. Six has a job that needs doing, and 007 is by far the best qualified man to do the job, as M told that ISC man, Mallory, when he objected to her continuing to use Bond. 

M was delighted to find Vesper absent when she arrived as she is well aware of the younger woman's hostility towards her, and while M can easily put her in her place, she doesn't want to make Bond feel that he has to choose between working for Six, or remaining with Vesper, just in case he chooses Vesper. He'd seemed delighted to see her when she showed up this morning, his eyes lighting up as he gave her a wide smile. He looked, she had noted, fit and healthy again, which is a relief given how he'd looked after he'd completed his previous mission. 

M doesn't begrudge Vesper what she has with Bond, but she's convinced that the connection that she has with the agent will always prevail: M's known him since he was an orphan and she first recruited him to Six's cause, and she's privy to things Vesper will never know about Bond because of the Official Secrets Act. Nor does she begrudge Bond his relationship with Vesper, well, not much, certainly no more than she's resented any of the other women Bond has had in his life over the years. She tells herself that she's not envious of the young and beautiful women who have shared his bed, because _she_ is the woman he always comes back to. The fact that he's been so clearly pleased to see her on each of the occasions on which she's shown up tells its own tale, she feels.

Bond gets to his feet and goes to collect the bags from Vesper, but M remains where she is, watching as Bond explains her presence to his lover, and seeing the rigid way in which Vesper holds herself as he talks. When they return to the yacht it's clear to M that Vesper's making a controlled effort to be polite, and she briefly feels sorry for the other woman, but not sorry enough to change her mind about sending Bond to Istanbul.


	2. Chapter 2

007-007-007

The Turkish mission, which should have been a simple data retrieval job, ends up going so far south that M reckons they'd need the Hubble Telescope to see it. Two agents wind up dead, three more are injured, and 007 – M has to pause to catch her breath and wrestle with her emotions every time she thinks of it – Bond is missing, presumed dead.

Not that Eve's given up looking for him. Ten days after he goes over the waterfall, M meets up with the young agent en route to break the news to Vesper, and finds Eve hollow-eyed and haggard.

"You look like hell," she observes when Eve opens the door to her boss.

"Sorry," she mumbles, and M shakes her head, gestures to her bodyguard to remain outside, then steps in through the half-open door.

Spread out on the table she sees a large-scale map of the river into which Bond fell after Eve shot him while trying to take down the man who'd stolen their hard drive; pins mark the villages and settlements which Eve's already visited downriver from the waterfall and railway bridge.

"When did you last eat?" asks M, turning from the map to the girl. "Or shower?"

Eve blinks, then looks apologetic. "Sorry, ma'am, I – "

M catches hold of the girl's arms. "I wasn't criticising you," she says gently. "I'm concerned for your well being. You'll be of no use to Bond, me, or anyone else, if you get sick or collapse from lack of rest or nourishment."

M's gentler with Eve than she'd be with Bond in similar circumstances, but then he's got – had – years of field experience behind him, and more training than Eve's currently received, in addition.

"Do you remember when you last ate?" M asks again.

"Um, yesterday – lunchtime." Eve sounds as if she's hazarding a guess, rather than absolutely certain.

"Is there any food here?" When Eve shakes her head, M goes to the door and orders Murray, her bodyguard, to go and fetch some supplies. He hesitates for a moment, but mercifully doesn't argue.

M then prods Eve through to the bathroom, which isn't as basic as she'd feared. The shower unit requires a good thumping before the water starts flowing, but at least it's hot. M waits while Eve gets it going, then leaves her to it, reasoning she'll have a shower now she's there. M, meanwhile, goes to the little kitchenette and when Murray returns with the food, sets about making them all some lunch.

An hour later, the younger woman is looking cleaner and less haggard, if still in need of a good night's sleep or five, and after assuring her that Six won't recall her unless it's absolutely necessary, M is back on the road and heading to the harbour to meet Vesper.

She isn't relishing the encounter and knows very well that Vesper will blame her for Bond's death. Ordinarily M doesn't notify an agent's relatives – not that Vesper, strictly speaking, is a relative, but she's the nearest Bond's got, besides M herself – but since the young woman briefly worked for Six, albeit at one remove, during the business at the Casino Royale, M dispenses with the protocols on this occasion, and goes to see her personally.

She finds Bond's yacht docked where expected, and Vesper's sitting on deck at a small table, using a laptop. She looks up as M walks up the gangplank and M can see that the younger woman has already worked out that her news is bad from the fact that Bond's not with her. Vesper's body stiffens and she stares up at her visitor with a dark expression.

"Miss Lynd."

"M." Vesper's tone is flat, but she gestures to the chair opposite her own and M sits down gratefully.

"Miss Lynd, I'm sorrier than I can say to have to tell you that James is missing, presumed dead."

"What happened?"

M gives her the edited version of events, leaving out just how important the hard drive was, and the fact that Eve had shot Bond before he went over the waterfall. 

"Why didn't you tell me this sooner?" demands Vesper. "It's been ten days since it happened, you say, and it's nearly two weeks since James went off to do your bidding _again_."

"We didn't tell you because we'd hoped to have definite proof, one way or the other, by now. We've been trying to find him – either his body, or someone who took him in if, by some miracle, he survived the fall. But it's been ten days and we've found no trace of him so we're not holding our breath. It's likely that he didn't survive, and that his body was washed downriver, and we may never recover it."

Vesper's hands, which have been resting on the table, clench into fists, and M braces herself for the inevitable tirade, but the younger woman doesn't even speak for several minutes. When she does, her voice is shaking with suppressed anger, "I hope you're satisfied old woman. Go away, before I say something you regret."

M is mildly impressed by how much self-control Vesper's exercising, but she says nothing more, merely nodding a farewell, before getting to her feet and making her way to where Murray's waiting for her at the foot of the gangplank.

"Let's get back to London," she says.

Murray looks relieved. "Yes, ma'am."

007-007-007

M is forced to recall Eve a week after her visit to Vesper, although she does so under protest, after being pressured by Mallory about Six's budget and remit in the wake of the debacle of the Turkish mission. Eve comes home and M sends her to Dr Hall for evaluation and grief counselling, then gives her desk work at HQ so that she can put some space between herself and what happened in Istanbul. They don't discuss it yet, but M wonders if the younger woman might prefer not to return to field work after her experiences, although it's not a decision Eve needs to make right away.

For herself, M finds Bond's absence each day is harder, not easier, to bear, although she wouldn't dream of admitting this to anyone. She finds herself envying the time Vesper had with him, and wishing she'd tried harder to persuade him to come back after the Casino Royale business, although she suspects he would have ended up resenting her if she'd succeeded.

Bond has been gone two months and despite the insinuations of both Mallory and the House of Common's committee of enquiry into the Istanbul mission, M is far from feeling complacent that no one seems to have figured out how to decrypt the missing hard drive. She feels quite certain it's only a matter of time, and that it could run out any day.

Mallory begins talking about her taking retirement, a move M resists with every fibre of her being, when two things occur almost simultaneously: the young man in charge of Q-Branch notifies her that he's received a signal indicating someone's begun decrypting the drive, and Eve gets a message from one of her Turkish contacts to say he might have found James Bond – alive, if not 100% well.

M leaves Q-Branch to see if they can trace whoever's responsible for initiating the decryption process – Q is, after all, far better qualified for such a job than M; instead she and Eve take a private charter flight out to Istanbul. The two women barely talk on the plane, but M doesn't doubt that Eve's feeling the same mixture of hope and apprehension that she is experiencing.

Eve's contact's wife, Aysu, meets them off the plane and drives them directly to where her husband, Hussein, is waiting with the injured man. They climb out of the battered mini and Aysu leads them into a fisherman's hut which is only a short distance from the river; there they find Bond stretched out asleep on a makeshift bed. M hears Eve's muffled gasp and puts out a hand to grasp the younger woman's wrist even as she begins to question Hussein and the fisherman, whose name she learns is Ali.

The two men explain that Ali pulled Bond out of the river about five miles downriver from the waterfall, although he firmly believed the white man was already dead. Finding, however, that he was still alive, if only just, Ali and his daughter, Selma, nursed him back to health as best they could, although three broken ribs, two gunshot wounds, a fractured left ankle, and unconsciousness made it a difficult task, especially for people with few resources. They had, in the end, taken some of the money from his wallet to pay for the assistance of a local medical man, although Selma assures M that she had kept a scrupulous note of what she had spent.

When Bond had eventually regained consciousness they found he had no idea of who he was, or how he had come by his injuries, but they continued to look after him until Selma heard from Aysu that her husband was looking for a white man who'd fallen from the railway bridge and gone over the waterfall up-river some weeks before. Selma told Aysu about the man her father had fished from the river, and she had passed on the news to Hussein, who had come to investigate.

They have barely finished their joint explanation when Bond wakes up. He looks up at the crowd of people around his bed and frowns, his blue eyes full of puzzlement. M sits down on the edge of the bed and Eve settles nearby on her haunches, while the Turks move further away.

"Hello James," M says quietly, hoping her voice is steadier than either her knees or her heartbeat.

"Hello?" His voice is husky from disuse, and she notes the lack of recognition in his eyes. 

Eve puts a hand to her mouth and M flashes her a look, willing her to keep calm, before she turns back to Bond. "Do you know who I am?" 

He shakes his head, looking apologetic, then bites his lip. "You're not my mother, are you?"

Eve makes a choked noise, but M ignores her, her attention focused on her agent. "No. I'm your boss."

He looks from M to Eve, then shakes his head again.

"Very well." M gets to her feet, then moves across the room to confer with Ali and the others. Half an hour later, Hussein is driving M, Eve, and Bond back to the airfield, and Ali and his daughter have been amply recompensed for their time and trouble, and the care they've given to Six's best agent.

M rings Tanner to let him know the news, and learns in return that someone has tried to hack into Six's servers in their absence. Mallory has also been in contact, but Tanner hadn't disclosed where M and Eve had gone.

"Is it really Bond?" Tanner asks.

"Yes. What's left of him. He's in bad shape, so you'd better make sure the Infirmary staff know to expect him. Contact Dr Hall, also, and find out who's the best neurologist available."

"Neurologist?" falters Tanner.

"Yes Mr Tanner."

"On it ma'am."

"Thank you, Mr Tanner."

007-007-007

Bond's recovered from his injuries and regained most of his memories, although he still doesn't recall the fall from the train, when the thing M's been dreading most comes up. 

"Does Vesper know I'm still alive?" 

M looks across her desk at him, marvelling silently at how fit and well he looks now, compared to a month ago. 

"I haven't told her," she says.

He frowns. "Why not?"

"Why should I tell her?" she asks. "She's not your wife, nor related to you in anyway. Besides, until last week, you didn't even remember Vesper."

"Dammit M – " he begins, before Tanner calls through on the intercom.

"Ma'am, I think you'd better see this." 

Something flashes up on the wall screen, and they both turn to see a video revealing the real names and secret identities of five of the agents listed on the hard drive.

"Damn," mutters M. She had really hoped this day wouldn't occur.

There's a personal message to M at the end of the video: "Think on your sins, Mommy. Have you told your Mr Bond how very bad you've been yet?"

"What the hell?" asks Bond, looking bemused.

M shakes her head. "As threats go, that's particularly cryptic." She hopes he hasn't realised that she recognised the voice, a voice she hasn't heard since the days when she was head of Station H. 

The sharp look Bond gives her, however, makes her suspect that he's realised she's hiding something from him. "Who is this man?" 

"Not now, Bond," she says firmly, then speaks to Tanner, giving him a string of orders for himself and Q-Branch to carry out in an attempt to see if they can establish where the video originated.

When she's finished, she looks at Bond, then sighs. "Come upstairs."

He's on his feet instantly, and follows her into the lift that takes them up to the roof of HQ. If he thinks she's being paranoid in bringing him up here, he doesn't say so, for which she's grateful.

"His real name's Rodriguez, Tiago Rodriguez, a computer scientist and a former Double-0. I knew him back when I was head of Station H, during the run up to the handover of Hong Kong to China. He was every bit as brilliant as you, but even more reckless and dangerous. I lost control of him, and after the Chinese captured him, I let them keep him in exchange for some British prisoners they were holding."

As Bond turns away from her to stare out over the skyline, M feels her stomach clench at the expression she reads in his blue eyes. She can sense, without him saying a word, that he considers her actions a betrayal of Rodriguez, but she reminds herself that Bond has no idea of what was happening at the time, of how utterly reckless Rodriguez had become, and how much he risked by playing his stupid power games with her.

She doesn't tell Bond just what those games entailed, or how reckless (to a lesser extent) she'd been herself at the period. Rodriguez had been every bit as charismatic and charming as Bond is himself, and she'd been far from home: even though she'd known that an affair between a section chief and a Double-0 agent was a very bad idea, she'd allowed herself to succumb, and paid a heavy price personally, if not professionally. Now it looked as if she might be forced to pay the price in professional terms as well, if Rodriguez was behind recent events.

Bond turns back to M and opens his mouth to speak, then closes it again. She's not looking at him, nor at the London skyline, though her eyes are turned that way, and he guesses she's seeing the past again. He senses there's more she could tell him about Rodriguez, in particular about her relationship with the agent, and he has to force himself to ignore the intense flare of jealousy which he feels when he considers the likelihood that M had an affair with this man. He reminds himself that he still has Vesper, and tells himself sternly that he doesn't see M that way (he's not going to admit, even to himself, that this is a lie). Thinking of Vesper, he also reminds himself that he's not obliged to remain here, and he could just fly back to Istanbul, and put all this nonsense behind him. But even as he thinks it, he knows he won't – his loyalty to M, whatever her faults, and to Six itself, is too great for him to walk away now. Vesper will have to wait.

"What can I do?" he asks.

M looks up at him. "Nothing, for the moment. You haven't even been declared fit for active duty yet."

"I've passed the physicals," he reminds her. He's quite sure she's already seen the test results. "My psychological evaluation is this morning."

She nods. "Well, concentrate on that, 007. I'll worry about Rodriguez. He's still my responsibility."

007-007-007

Dr Hall's psychiatric report is good and Bond is summoned into M's office just before lunchtime to receive the good news.

"Congratulations, Bond, you're now fit for active service." M's tone is cool, and he wonders if he's imagining the hint of reserve in her manner. He supposes it's not surprising that she should feel reticent after their rooftop conversation, so he receives her congratulations with a nod and a "Ma'am".

She's silent for a little while afterwards and he forces himself to sit still and not fidget while she deliberates.

"We need to find a way to flush out Rodriguez," she says finally. "We can't move against him if we don't where he is."

"Can't Q-Branch help?" he asks.

"They're already running searches for him and the various aliases he used in his Double-0 days, but if he's created a new identity, then we won't find him that way."

"What about running a personal ad?" Bond suggests.

M's eyebrow goes up. "What do you suggest? 'Wanted, one former Double-0 agent, born Tiago Rodriguez'?"

Bond's own eyebrows shoot up. "Why be so specific? Why not simply 'Tiago Rodriguez, contact this number' – and give a number we can monitor, then sign off with 'Your Six old friends', which should convince him it's from you. Then when he rings the number provided, you can get Q-Branch to trace the call, and I'll pop along and pick him up for you."

M looks thoughtful. "Your idea is not without merit," she says eventually, and Bond feels rather pleased with himself. "All right, 007, you're free for the rest of the day. I'll see you in the morning as usual."

"Yes, ma'am." He gets to his feet, gives her a farewell nod, then goes in search of Bill Tanner and Eve Moneypenny. He invites them both to lunch, but Tanner turns him down with an apology, explaining that he has a meeting with M in half an hour which will probably take all afternoon. Eve, however, agrees immediately and seems delighted to be asked.

After they're seated and have placed their orders, Eve says quietly, "I wasn't sure you'd still be talking to me after what happened."

"Well," he says in a lazy drawl. "I did consider holding a grudge, but life's too short, and you're too good an agent for me to ostracize you."

"Thanks." She gives him a grateful smile, and he smiles back. "Are you staying at Six now, or will you be returning to Vesper?"

"I'm staying until this business with the hard drive is sorted out. I can't leave M in the lurch when it's partly my fault that we lost it."

"I'd say more mine than yours," Eve begins, "if I hadn't shot you – "

"Don't Eve." She looks startled at his harsher tone, so he softens it again. "It's far too late for 'What Ifs', and we are all at fault in different ways. Besides, you made up for it by being relentless about tracking me down afterwards." He reaches across and squeezes her hand. "So, just forget it now, as much as you can, and concentrate on the future. It looks like things are going to become pretty messy and complicated for all of us soon, and we'll need to be very sharp if we're all going to get through this in one piece."

Eve's eyes widen at this warning, then she nods her understanding, and he lifts her hand to kiss her knuckles, then lets go as their meals arrive.

007-007-007

Bond's prediction turns out to be truer than even he anticipated, and the battle to stop Rodriguez, or Silva as he's begun calling himself, turns out to be costly for both Bond and M. M uses Bond's suggestion of placing a personal ad, then 007 goes to collect the former agent after he makes contact and Q-Branch traces his location. He comes more quietly than Bond anticipated, considering the reputation M has given him, and Bond realises with hindsight that he should have guessed Silva was playing him, but he'd been too relieved not to have to fight the Spaniard that he let his guard down a little. Afterwards he also acknowledges the truth of M's observation that Bond's not as sharp as he was before he went off with Vesper.

At the time, however, he simply congratulates himself on bringing Silva in with the minimum of fuss. He goes down with M to see Silva in the detention block and stands a pace behind her right shoulder, doing his very best impassive agent act, as she interrogates Silva and tries to establish what he wants, and why he's so hell-bent on destroying the Service.

The story Silva tells of his torture by the Chinese is a chilling one and Bond feels a moment of doubt about M's decision to trade Silva in exchange for several British prisoners they're holding. He's already seen the files, or as much of them as M was willing to show him (he rather doubts she's shown him everything – he knows M too well, and knows how close to her chest she tends to keep her hand). He knows from those files that Silva, or Rodriguez as he was then, was very much out of control. 

"There's more you're not telling me," Bond observes once he's finished reading the files in her office (she has refused to let him take them away).

M snorts. "Of course there is, Bond. Need to know."

He twists his mouth into the rough approximation of a smile. "I don't need to remind you that I'm the one who's going to pick him up when we find him." He gives her a steady look, but she doesn't answer, so he says, more gently than he feels inclined to do, "M, if he's got something personal against you, which his video message implied, I think you ought to tell me. The outline at least."

She sighs heavily, then nods. "Very well. But if one word of this – "

"M, please. I'm a secret agent, I can keep secrets, even yours. Especially yours."

"Sorry." She leans back in her chair and turns it half away from him, a distancing gesture that's not lost on him: whatever she's about to tell him, Bond knows it's going to change their relationship in some way, and he mentally braces himself.

"Silva." She stops, shakes her head, then resumes, "Rodriguez was a young man when we first met -–though not as young as you were when we first met – and very handsome. And he knew it." She glances back at him. "He was even more arrogant than you in that regard."

Bond lifts an eyebrow, but doesn't comment. He doesn't want her to get side-tracked, and she seems to realise this because she sighs again before she continues,

"We had an affair. It was a very stupid thing to do, even leaving aside the fact that I was married with two young children. Getting involved in an intimate relationship with an agent is folly of the worst kind, as I learned the hard way." She turns fully towards the window now and stares out in silence for several minutes. "He got me pregnant and I had to have an abortion. It was my own fault, I should have ensured he used a condom or used some contraception myself. Anyway, it became painfully clear that he was unhealthily obsessed with me, and whenever I refused to do what he wanted, he took out his frustrations on the locals with dire consequences. When the Chinese caught him, I was relieved, and when they offered to release some British political prisoners in exchange, I said 'Yes'. Essentially I expect that we will find he hasn't forgiven me for not getting him back."

When Silva's account of his torture is finished, Bond realises that M's underestimated the former agent: it's not just that Silva hasn't forgiven M, but that he wants revenge and, if Bond's not mistaken, he wants revenge on the whole of Six, not just M – but it's M he wants to hurt the most. 

As soon as they're out of Silva's sight, Bond grabs M's elbow and, ignoring her protest, steers her into an empty office nearby.

"He wants you dead," he says flatly. "He wants to destroy Six, and he doesn't care how many he hurts or kills in the process of achieving that destruction, but he wants to kill you – slowly and painfully. He's got a hard-on for you – " She gives him a sharp glance and he thinks she's going to interrupt, but her lips thin into an almost invisible line instead. "and it will give him great sexual satisfaction to kill you, preferably with his bare hands."

"He's locked up, Bond. He can't hurt me."

Bond shakes his head. "If you really believe that, then you're a fool, and you're not a fool M. He let me bring him in too easily – this is where he wants to be, where you are. If you're wise, you'll leave the office and head to a safe house somewhere."

"I have a job to do, and I intend to see it done." With that she turns on her heel and stalks away, and Bond lets her go for the moment: he needs to process what he's heard from Silva.


	3. Chapter 3

007-007-007

M returns to her office, irritated and, although she wouldn't dream of admitting it to anyone, unsettled. She had felt horror when listening to Silva's account of his torture and his failed attempt at suicide, and while she's assured Bond that she's not going to run away and hide from Silva, she knows that she'd be wise to have him closely guarded. She well remembers what a genius programmer he was, and she somehow doubts he's lost any of his old skills over the last two decades.

She calls Tanner into her office and gives him strict instructions regarding Silva, then composes an email to tell Mallory of Silva's capture. The email is sent and she's just wondering where her errant Double-0 agent has got to when he wanders in.

"Sit down, Bond," she says, all business.

"Ma'am." He seats himself, then gives her an expectant look. 

She outlines to him the instructions she's given to Tanner, then explains the procedure she intends everyone to follow while Silva is in the building. They're still talking when alarms begin sounding in the office outside followed by little shrieks of outrage. Bond gives M a glance. "Stay here, ma'am," he says firmly, then he steps over to the door and looks through the glass to see that the sprinkler system is going, and the shrieks are in response to the sudden unexpected shower people are being subjected to. He glances back at M, who's looking at her computer; she glances up for a moment and gives him a nod, so he slips out of the door and heads over to Tanner's desk.

"What's going on?" he asks loudly since the noise level has increased.

"Some sort of malfunction in the software that controls the alarm and sprinkler systems," Tanner replies. "There's no fire, anyway."

"And the security system?" asks Bond, as he recalls M telling him that Silva was a genius computer programmer.

"Untouched," Tanner says positively.

Bond nods. "Keep an eye on M, will you? I'm going down to Q-Branch."

Tanner gives him a slightly puzzled look, then nods. Bond hurries across to the lift and is halfway down to Q-Branch when the lift comes to an abrupt halt, lurching and nearly knocking Bond off his feet. He hits the comms button, but no one responds. He tries a second time, in vain, then, feeling deeply suspicious, he scrambles up and out of the hatch in the ceiling. He sees that the lift car has stopped between floors, so he hauls himself up to the floor above, then prises the door open and squeezes his way through.

He has a gut feeling that something untoward is going on, and that Silva's behind it, so he makes his way to the stairs and races up them to M's office. He draws his Walther PPK as he goes, convinced that Silva will be waiting for him when he arrives.

Instead, however, he finds the outer office empty of staff except Eve, who's lying huddled on the floor, a gunshot wound in her left leg. Horrified, but wary, he hurries over and she opens her eyes before he can reach her, her gun coming up to point at him before she recognises Bond.

"What happened?"

"Silva. He suddenly stepped out of the lift and started firing. I fired back, but I don't think I even winged him. Sorry, James." She bites back a sob of pain.

"Not your fault, darling Eve," he says. "I shouldn't have left M. Where's Tanner?"

"He'd already gone in to see M when Silva appeared." She swallowed hard. "I heard a gunshot from inside her office after Silva went in."

"Just one?" Bond asks sharply, and Eve nods. "Right." He bends down and scoops her up carefully, settling her in a chair, then he rips off his tie and uses it as a makeshift tourniquet for her leg.

"See if you can contact anyone else in the building or outside it. If you can get an outside line, ring Mallory and tell him what's happened. Ask him to get Special Branch to surround the building and block off the nearby streets, but insist to him that on no account should they try to storm the building, or we'll have even more bodies to add to Silva's tally."

He rubs a hand over his face as he thinks, then adds, "And if you can get hold of our internal security team, tell them to block all the exits, and make sure they are all armed – Silva's dangerous."

"What are you going to do?" asks Eve as he begins moving away.

"Finish this." He doesn't add: if he can, nor will he contemplate the possibility that he's already too late.

He crosses to the door of M's office and darts his head forward for a fast look inside. What he sees doesn't make him feel any easier: Tanner is sprawled on the floor, unconscious rather than dead he thinks, but of M or Silva there's no sign. He suspects they're up on the roof, but he nevertheless lets himself into M's office with some caution. 

No one shoots at him, so he hurries over to Tanner and discovers his diagnosis is correct: Tanner is unconscious, apparently knocked out by the butt of Silva's gun, judging by the graze on his temple. 

Bond quickly scans the rest of the room and sees blood on the carpet, leading across the room from a spot near M's desk to the door of the private lift. He hurries across and hits the button to call the lift down to him, then reaches down to ease his father's dirk free of the sheath on his ankle. He's very aware that the roof is a good place for Silva to ambush him: a perfect little killing ground, in fact. The trail of blood spots gives him hope that M is still alive, or was when she entered the lift, otherwise her body would still be here in her office: unless Silva's so far gone he's prepared to carry a dead weight around, a thought Bond immediately shoves to the back of his mind.

The lift stops and Bond positions himself to the side of the door in case Silva decides to shoot first. The door opens, but no one fires, so Bond edges his face around the door frame and scans the roof. He sees Silva and M at the far edge of the rooftop, and brings his gun up, just as Silva looks up and spots him.

"Ah James, dear boy, there you are at last. I was beginning to think you weren't going to come and join our merry party."

Silva is clutching M to him in a gross parody of a loving embrace, all smiles and teeth, but Bond can see the madness in his eyes, and the pain in M's. She, like Eve, has a gunshot wound in her leg which is bleeding sluggishly. M is dishevelled, and he realises she must have tried to put up a fight, despite Silva's superior height and weight. The thought of it sickens him, and he realises something he's never dared to admit before, even to himself: M is the most important woman in his life, and if Silva kills her, Bond won't know how to go on without her.

He begins to walk warily towards them, doing his best to remain calm and steady despite the fear that's hammering at his heart. He still has his gun in his hand, held out towards Silva, but his left hand hangs at his side so that the dirk is hidden by his leg. He suspects Silva won't just shoot him in cold blood, he'll wait until Bond is close, so that M is forced to watch. This one, he thinks, much prefers certain people's deaths to be up close and personal.

"So you're Mommy's new blue-eye boy," Silva says in a sing-song tone that Bond finds irritating. "Tell me, Mommy dearest, is he as good as me?"

"Better," M says instantly, her voice surprisingly steady given her precarious position at the edge of the roof. "Bond's never treated me as his plaything."

Silva growls and Bond's grip on his gun tightens.

"You mean he's not been man enough to fuck you, yet?" Silva pulls a disappointed face and 'tsks' at Bond as if he's been terribly remiss in this regard. "It's a shame, James, that you haven't had her yet. When I first knew her she was a delightful little thing, so sexy and insatiable. Of course, the shine's off her now." He tightens his grip on M's body, and gives her a sloppy kiss. When he pulls away, Bond can see M's biting her lip in an effort not to respond. He makes himself swallow down several taunts since he fears they might push Silva over the edge, literally, and M with him. He doesn't dare to shoot the Spaniard as the force of the bullet would almost certainly throw both of them off the roof. He needs, he realises, to make Silva come after him, to separate him from that tight grip on M.

"I prefer my women younger and fresher," Bond says, flicking an apologetic glance at M. "That pretty young woman you shot downstairs? She's much more my mark. A little tigress in bed: such stamina, and strong, too. Fucking her is a wild ride, but so exhilarating."

Bond is talking completely at random since he's never bedded Eve, not that he hadn't been tempted, but at that point he had still considered himself to be with Vesper. Mentally he apologises to Eve for the slander.

Silva's eyes have brightened as Bond talks, and he shifts slightly, angling himself towards 007 and away from M.

"If you want me to effect an introduction, a more formal one, that is, one that doesn't involve guns, just say the word." Bond lifts his eyebrows and tilts his head towards the lift.

"Do you think she'd be interested?" Silva asks.

"Only one way to find out," Bond says. "You know she shot me a few months ago? We didn't let it get in our way, though. She might forgive you, just as I forgave her."

Silva's body twitches towards Bond, M apparently forgotten for the moment. "Did you make her suck on your gun? Or fuck her with it?" Silva shifts a little further, and M seizes on his distraction to shove him hard towards Bond, who brings up his left hand, the one holding his dirk, and he feels a sense of satisfaction as he plunges it into Silva's belly. The Spaniard shrieks, although it sounds more like a cry of pleasure than pain, then he yanks himself free of the knife and jerks up his gun hand. Bond is already moving, as is M, when the shot hits him, but he keeps going. He shoves Silva back towards the edge of the roof with his shoulder, while using his other arm to push M behind him.

His upper arm is on fire but he ignores it, as he and Silva engage in a furious struggle at the edge of the roof. Silva roars incoherently at him, but Bond is determined to let nothing deflect him, and after a few more moments, he senses that Silva is beginning to weaken from his blood loss, and he makes an almost superhuman effort to free himself from Silva's grasp, at the same time shoving the Spaniard hard.

Silva goes over the edge of the roof with a cry, and Bond staggers back to bump into M, who clutches his uninjured arm.

"James," she says, her blue eyes full of relief as well as pain.

"M." He wraps his arm around her, then dares to duck his head and kiss her on the mouth. She seems to melt against him and after a moment they sink down onto the roof in each other's arms, clinging together as the adrenaline rush passes to leave them shaking with the shock.

Before they can move, Mallory comes bursting out of the lift accompanied by three of Six's security men, and a flurry of activity results in them being taken from the roof by helicopter to a nearby hospital, along with Eve and Tanner, who's only just starting to come round from Silva's blow.

007-007-007

There follows a period which Bond usually finds intensely boring and irritating: recovering from his injuries always seems to take far longer than he's prepared to wait. This time, however, he has the company of M and Eve to help him to pass the time in a more bearable manner. The three of them end up playing a good deal of Scrabble, something that M initiates, and it turns out she's a demon player. Bond decides it's just as well they're not playing for money, or M would have bankrupted him and Eve very quickly.

Eventually they're all declared fit to leave the hospital, and Bond goes to stay at M's flat since his own is rented by a tenant, and his boat is still out in Istanbul. M suggests arranging a flight out there so he can be reunited with Vesper, but he refuses, citing the necessity of staying in London for his physiotherapy. To his relief M doesn't point that this is a poor excuse, but instead offers him the use of her guest bedroom, which he accepts with alacrity.

On their first evening he goes out and fetches a takeaway for dinner since neither of them feels like going food shopping so that they can cook. On his way to M's favourite Chinese he sees a florist who's just beginning to shut up shop, so he nips in and buys some flowers for M

She gives him a surprised look when he hands them over, but she say doesn't anything except 'Thank you'. He wonders nervously if she's secretly horrified since it's not something he's ever done before. It was an impulsive gesture, to let her know how glad he is that she survived Silva's attack, but he can't seem to articulate his feelings – he feels as tongue-tied as a young schoolboy in this regard, which he knows is absurd.

Dinner is a largely silent meal, apart from occasional requests to pass this or that. However, as they're gathering the empty containers M puts a hand on Bond's arm.

"James."

He looks down at her: it's not often she uses his first name, usually she addresses him as Bond or 007. "Yes?" he asks, when she doesn't say anything else.

"I haven't thanked you for saving me from Silva."

He shakes his head. "I was just doing my job."

"You resigned from the Service eighteen months ago," she reminds him. "You had no obligation to stick around after Eve's contacts tracked you down following the Istanbul fiasco. You could easily have told me where to stick my missions and gone back to Vesper."

"No, I couldn't," he says firmly. "I couldn't leave you to face whoever was behind that failed mission on your own. Nor was I going to abandon you to whatever Mallory was plotting."

She steps into his personal space and startles him by slipping her arms around him. "Dear boy," she says softly, and he dumps the containers he holds to embrace her in return.

"M." He puts a finger under her chin to lift her head then ducks his own to kiss her. She stretches up to wrap her arms around his neck instead of his torso, and he cradles her body against his, deepening the kiss further until a shudder seems to wrack her small frame.

"What is it?" he asks quietly.

"Nothing," she says, pulling away and delving into her jacket pocket for a handkerchief to wipe away tears.

"M, you don't cry for nothing," he says emphatically.

"Please, James, don't." She dries her eyes, then turns away. "Goodnight." She walks away, leaving him confused and angry. 

He stomps around, gathering up the rubbish from their meal and takes it through to the kitchen. Returning to the sitting room he helps himself to M's Scotch and pours himself a measure, which he tosses down in one swallow as he stands in the middle of the room. The alcohol, in combination with his increasing irritation, gives him the courage to go and speak to M. He knocks perfunctorily on the door then goes in without waiting for permission to enter.

M is sitting at her dressing table, crying, and his anger drains away instantly at the sight. 

"What is it?" he asks, hurrying over to kneel beside her. He takes her hands in his. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know if I can do this," she answers, pulling one hand free of his to mop at her eyes.

"Do what?" he asks, confused.

"Pretend that I don't care about you a good deal, James, more than is wise."

He leans forward and wraps his arms around her. "Then don't pretend. Did you know that Silva trying to kill you made me realise that you're the most important woman in my life?"

"What about Vesper?" she asks, her voice somewhat muffled by virtue of her face being buried in his neck.

"Even more than Vesper," he says. He pulls back, then lifts her chin just as he had earlier, and kisses her as if he never intends to stop.

"James." His name comes out as a whisper as M stares at him.

"Marion?" he says, greatly daring.

"Come to bed."

He smiles, then stands up and scoops her up from the stool to carry her over to the bed. They undress each other in stages, punctuated by a good deal more kissing.

"You'll have to use some lube," she tells him, a faint blush colouring her cheeks as she nods towards the bedside table.

He reaches over and removes the bottle from the drawer, then uncaps it before pausing to ask, "Are you sure about this?"

"Very." She takes the bottle from him, pours some into her hand, then reaches for his cock. He moans quietly as he watches her small hands lathering the stuff onto his stiff prick: it seems like the most erotic sight he's ever seen.

M passes him the bottle and he dumps it on the bedside, then moves his body over hers.

"Go gently, please," she says. "You're very big and – " she pauses and he gives her an enquiring look. "I've been celibate since my husband passed away."

He feels very moved by this information, and leans forward on his elbows to kiss her tenderly. "I'll be careful," he promises. 

A part of M cannot quite believe they're about to do this, but another, larger part, is relieved that she's finally admitted her feelings to James, and to find that he reciprocates them. 

He's true to his word, gently easing his way inside her. He pauses once his cock's buried inside her pussy, and she moans quietly, feeling both pleasure and pain as she adjusts to the size of his prick. Once she feels ready, she wraps her legs around his and nips at his earlobe. "Fuck me, James."

He groans in response, then begins to withdraw, before thrusting back home again in a slow and steady rhythm. The friction of his cock against her clit is intense and he quickly drives her to orgasm.

When he resumes moving, she notices that he's thrusting faster, and she guesses that his own climax is approaching. He is fucking her deep and hard now, and she suspects she'll be sore in the morning, but she decides it doesn't matter, all that matters is his release. As she moans and tightens her pussy muscles around his prick in a second orgasm, he gasps out her name, then begins to come.

He slumps down over her and she strokes his hair as he struggles to regain control of his breathing. Then he lifts his head and kisses her tenderly. "Are you all right?"

She nods. "You?"

He chuckles. "Never better."

"Good."

He eases himself away from her, then reaches for the bedding and turning onto his back, pulls it up over them. She tucks her body alongside his, her head resting on his uninjured shoulder, and her hand resting over his heart.

Suddenly he chuckles again.

"What?" asks M sleepily.

"Well, I was just recalling that a good fuck is usually my litmus test of how well I'm recovering after being injured." He turns his head and peers at her through the dim light. "If I can do it without bursting my stitches, then so much the better."

"Bad boy," she says affectionately.

"Says the woman who told me to come to bed." He leans over and kisses the top of her head, and she snuggles closer as his arm curls around her body. 

Within minutes they're both drifting into sleep.

007-007-007

They awake to heavy rain the following morning and M moans in dismay: she's feeling her age after last night's exertions.

"Let's run away somewhere warm," James suggests when she complains about the weather on her way to the bathroom.

She pauses in the doorway and raises a quizzical eyebrow. "Where?"

He gives a half shrug, then smiles. "Well, let's go and collect my boat, first, then decide."

"What about Vesper?" she asks.

"She won't mind."

M seriously doubts the truth of that remark, but she doesn’t argue. James can be very oblivious on occasion, especially when it comes to women, but she admits to herself that the idea of collecting his boat and sailing somewhere warm is very appealing. When she returns from the bathroom wrapped in a fluffy bathrobe after a quick shower, he's got her laptop open on the bed and is about to book them a flight out to Istanbul.

007-007-007

They arrive in Istanbul safely, but they're both feeling worn out and after James grabs a taxi to take them to the harbour, they slump onto the back seat together.

"Did you email Vesper to tell her we're coming?" M asks.

"No."

M frowns. "Have you even let her know you're still alive yet?" He shakes his head. "Oh, James," she sighs.

He takes her hand in his, ignoring the fact that it's dwarfed by his own. "I'm not sure I ever really loved her, you know. I think it was just an infatuation."

She doesn't know what to say to this remark, so she keeps her silence; they're soon at the harbour and she tells James that he should go and speak to Vesper alone. He's not keen on the idea, but she insists, preferring to be out of the immediate firing range if Vesper starts throwing things.

She wanders along the front until she finds a bench and sits down to wait. Only a few minutes pass before she hears raised voices from James' boat, and she glances towards it in time to see Vesper smacking James about the head and shoulders in an obvious rage. She winces, hoping that the younger woman won't cause him to burst his stitches, but she remains seated on the bench.

Half an hour passes, then Vesper storms down the gangplank, carrying two bags. She looks neither right nor left as she hurries away from the harbour, and M feels a traitor for her relief that Vesper hasn't seen her. Another few minutes pass, then James comes out on deck; he spends a few moments watching Vesper's disappearing form, then he looks around until he spots M. He walks over unhurriedly and she sees a sheepish expression on his face.

"That could have gone worse," he says as he sinks onto the bench beside her. "But it could also have gone rather better."

"Did you really think it would go well?" M asks curiously.

He shakes his head. "No." He sighs. "At least she didn't break anything I valued. Just a couple of plates and a mug." He puts an arm around M. "There's food aboard. Shall we have some lunch and a nap before we go and get some supplies? I thought we could leave in the morning, if that's all right?"

"Is Vesper likely to come back?"

"I don't think so – her pride's too hurt. I think she's far more likely to make an effigy of me and stick pins in it."

"Well, I can't say that I blame her. You tend to have that effect on all women."

He lifts his eyebrows. "Even you?"

"There have been many occasions on which my frustration with you has led to things being kicked, jabbed or punched," she says.

His sheepish look becomes more pronounced. "I'm sorry."

"Yes, well. I tend to forgive you because you're brilliant at what you do – and a born survivor, even if you are reckless, arrogant, and a danger to women's hearts."

"Why are you here, then?" he asks, sounding a little hurt at this assessment.

"Because, my dear boy, I happen to care a good deal about you, more than is perhaps wise, but I am too old to care much about that."

She gets to her feet and he joins her, then they make their way back to the boat. "Besides," she adds, "I already know what I'm getting into – which is far more than any of your other women have ever been able to claim."

"Is that meant to be reassuring?" Bond asks.

M laughs. "It reassures me, at any rate."

They make their way up the gangplank, then down into the cabin, and M thinks that the next few weeks could prove very interesting for both of them, because life around James Bond is never dull.


End file.
